This
article in the club's Bulletin describes the Maternity Center's launching
and its early activities. It shows that the Center worked closely with several
other groups.

MATERNITY PROTECTION

Every
day makes it more apparent that war conditions have made our work in Maternity
Protection doubly important. A recent letter from the Federal Committee
on venereal diseases calls attention to the fact that European armies have
lost the services of more men from venereal diseases than from any other
one cause. Add to this, the great increase in insanity, the crippling and
maiming of men, and finally the actual loss of life among the select men
of the country and it becomes clear that there was never a time when we
need not only to save every life but to see that we produce a healthy, viril
new generation.

Club
members will be glad to know, therefore, that our special Maternity Center
has now been established at 219 East 79th St. We have taken the
first floor of a fine old house which gives us an office, waiting room,
dressing room and examining room. Miss Anna Stevens, a graduate nurse of
Johns Hopkins, is in immediate charge with Dr. Warren Hildreth and Dr. Angenette
Parry, physicians for the clinics. Miss Stevens has had charge of the maternity
wards at Johns Hopkins and at the Brooklyn Hospital, while Dr. Hildreth
was for three years in charge of obstetrics at the Sloane Maternity Hospital
and is now associated with Dr. Ralph Waldo Lobenstine. Dr. Parry, one of
our own members, is well known as one of the leading women physicians of
the city. Miss Hazel Corbin, a graduate nurse from the Brooklyn Hospital,
with earlier business training will be in charge of the office work.

Even
with this staff we could not begin to handle the cases which are coming
to us without the generous aid which the Henry Street Settlement has given
by assigning several nurses to this pre-natal visiting work. Definite plans
of cooperation, whereby maternity cases, otherwise without care, are referred
to us, have been worked out with the Manhattan Maternity Hospital, the School
Nurses and Milk Centers of the Board of Health, the Charity Organization
Society, the Beth-El Sisterhood, the Emanu-eL Sisterhood, the Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor, the New York Diet Kitchen, and
several settlements. Other agencies will be reached as rapidly as possible.

Another
important branch of the work is the arrangement whereby nurses are provided
to assist doctors at deliveries. The need for a nurse to remain with the
mother and help with the baby has been serious. We are able to provide this
service through the cooperation of the Manhattan Maternity Hospital and
the various nursesí training schools which are supplying nurses to work
under the direction of the Henry Street Nurses.

There
has yet been but little time to develop properly the educational work, but
even without this we are handling over two hundred cases and the clinics
on Tuesdays and Thursdays are well attended. We are especially pleased at
the securing through the Board of Health the active cooperation of the midwives
who are bringing their cases to us for examination and advice, as in the
case of a woman who had two miscarriages and the midwife was anxious to
avoid a third. In another case special advice was needed for a woman who
was about to have her first baby and who had an unusually small pelvis,
a common cause of mortality among both mothers and babies. If we can encourage
midwives to secure expert obstetrical advice, we will have made an important
advance in a city where the use of midwives is so prevalent.

The
need for development of the work in various directions is becoming imperative.
Mother Clubs for instance must be immediately organized for the instruction
of mothers in regard to the need of regular physical examinations as well
as instruction concerning proper food and care of themselves and the feeding
and clothing of the baby.

We
hope that every Club member who has not yet contributed toward this work
will do so at once as funds are greatly needed. Come to the meeting on Wednesday
and hear further details.